and sanctification. Distinguished examples of such works are the act of Abraham in bringing his son to the altar, for he could not more completely have proved his love for God; or the act of Rahab in receiving and sending away the spies of the Israelites, for she saved their life at the risk of her own (ii. 21, 25).

§ 2. CONCEPT OF FAITH

It is more difficult to say what James means by faith. The fact that, in accordance with his undeveloped doctrine of salvation, he refers faith at one time to Christ, and again, and much more frequently, to God (ii. 1, cf. with i. 6, ii. 19, 22, 23), makes the comprehension of the idea difficult. But more significant is the fact that James speaks of a dead faith, which he does not recognise as the true, but yet allows it to pass as an actual faith; for that the ἔαν πίστιν λέγῃ τὶς ἔχειν of ii. 14 is not meant in the sense of a mere apparent faith, is made plain by the words immediately following, as well as by vv. 20, 24, 26. The question, therefore, is to discover a notion of faith that unites in itself the two possibilities of being alive or dead. The notion usually accepted of a mere intellectual assent without fiducia, is not sufficient even for the dead faith of James, not to speak of the living. It is true that this notion seems to be justified by the passage ii. 19, where the dead faith of the readers is described by way of example as a belief that there is one God, and compared with the faith of devils who also believe that and tremble at it; but too much should not be deduced from this passage. Just as the faith of the readers was not limited in its object to the unity of God, for it was also faith in the Messiahship of Jesus at anyrate (ii. 1), so we cannot suppose this attitude in faith to be exactly the same as that of devils, though, of course, there must be a sinister likeness and affinity between the two. The context, in particular, excludes the idea that an intellectual faith without fiducia was in his mind; the men of dead faith really had their trust in it—though a delusive trust. They thought, according to ii. 14, that mere faith could save them. The passage i. 6 carries us further, "But let him ask in faith, nothing doubting." Here we must not in vague

fashion understand by faith the assurance that one will get what he asks; for even the doubter, according to ver. 7, has this cheap and, as experience shows, delusive oleo lat. But

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as the doubter, according to i. 7, ii. 4, is to James the "doubleminded" man who wavers between God and the world, who is not really and truly convinced that God is the one true Good and this world nothing but the aggregate of transitory blessings, it follows that faith in i. 6 is to him the conviction that God is, and that He is the rewarder of them that seek Him (Heb. xi. 6); in other words, that the world of the invisible and eternal possessions is the only actual world. thus come, in the case of James, to the same notion of faith as is found in the celebrated passage Heb. xi. 1: the conviction of the reality of supersensuous facts and blessings; and this idea of faith-which belongs to all religions, and does not bear the special stamp of Christianity-solves the riddle lying before us. For this conviction, which, of course, includes for men a reliance on these facts and blessings of salvation, may be living and operative, the motive power of the moral life in those who cherish it; or it be may dead and inactive, and encourage men in an unreasonable confidence. And in the latter case the faith of the man has a far-reaching likeness to that of demons, who, as is proved by their trembling, know that those facts and saving blessings are of no use to them; both have the certainty in which is no blessing or moral fruit, and in which at last there is condemnation. And it is not without meaning that James (ii. 19) takes hold of the main article of Jewish faith, the confession of monotheism. Just as all Jews prided themselves on this point of distinction from heathendom, and excused themselves for all their ungodliness because they were right in this, for which Paul reproaches them (Rom. ii. 17 ff.), the readers of our Epistle, under the influence of a reaction in which what was bad in Judaism had reappeared, had also allowed this indolent reliance in the mere facts and hopes of their Christian faith to take hold of them.

§ 3. RELATION BETWEEN FAITH AND WORKS

But we only gain perfect clearness about the concepts faith and works when we contemplate the relation which

James conceives to exist between the two. It has been thought that we must understand them in James as two independent powers standing beside each other, and barely capable of a union, or connection, and that we must, on the other hand, set aside the idea of works as proceeding from faith.1 This view, which is supported especially by the cooperation of faith and works, asserted in ii. 22, cannot, however, be maintained. The injunction ii. 1, “Have not your faith in the Lord Jesus Christ with respect of persons" (not in any sectional spirit), shows that the author regards Christian faith as carrying with it moral consequences. That appears still more plainly in ii. 18; if faith cannot be proved without works, if it can and must be proved by works, then works must somehow proceed from faith. And how could James, from the examples he adduces, have conceived the relation otherwise than he has done? James could not fail to see that Abraham's willingness to offer his son in sacrifice to God sprang from his trust in God, and the confidence that God is better than the dearest earthly possession; in the same way he must have seen that the deed of Rahab proceeded from her faith in the superior might and approaching victory of the God of Israel. Therefore, according to James, faith and works do stand in the relation of tree and fruit; but there are unfruitful trees, and there is a faith which lacks the normal impulse to prove its quality in conduct. That is in no way

opposed by the declaration of ver. 22, that faith co-operates with works (ovvepyeî), and by works is made perfect. For the ovvepyeî does not mean that faith helps works, springing up independently of it, to perfect themselves, but that it cooperates with them in order to bring about justification; this reading is absolutely necessary, for it could not be said of the works, which are also described as active in the word σvvepyeî, that they produced themselves. So also the ὅτι ἡ πίστις χωρὶς τῶν ἐργῶν ἀργή ἐστιν does not mean : it is worthless to good works, for James did not need to tell anybody that a faith without works is inoperative, apyn; but it means, that such a faith is ineffectual for justification. But that tree and fruit combine to secure the approval of the Gardener, that religious faith and its moral proof work together to win for 1 So Weissenbach, Exegetisch-theologische Studie über Jac. ii. 14–26. 1871.

man the divine recognition of being just, is no unsuitable thought. The deduction of works from faith is also not contradicted by the statement of ver. 22, that faith is perfected by works. Any conviction is strengthened in the very act of living up to it, and certainly the faith of Abraham reached its perfection when he was able to offer in sacrifice to God the Idearest that he had on earth. The passage ii. 26 ("as the body without the soul is dead, so also faith without works is dead") would give a different and almost contrary relation of faith and works, if works in it were conceived as the soul of faith. That would not be a co-ordinating of two powers, independent and only capable of being united, for body and soul do not first exist independently beside one another, in order then to enter into union; but faith as the more active would rather proceed from works than works from the living faith. But James cannot have thought that, because it would directly contradict ver. 18. If faith is not recognisable in itself, but first becomes visible by works, then it cannot possibly be thought of as the visible, the body, and works as the invisible, the soul. But this comparison, which is not to be overstrained, can only mean, as a body without a soul is a corpse, so is faith without moral proof; it lacks the living impulse which gives it practical worth. Thus James, in conformity with the whole character of his doctrinal system, conceived works in true Christian fashion as the practical proofs of the new life which God has begotten in Christian men, and which they must not allow to die in them again. But his conception of faith hangs between the Old and New Testament, it is partly Christian and partly universal in its religious character; and whilst he recognises, what he has learnt from life, that it may be living or dead, active or merely passive, he from the first excluded the idea that it should have such absolute value assigned to it as it has in Paul's world of thought, where it appears as the foundation of justification.

CHAPTER V

JUSTIFICATION

§ 1. THE CONCEPT JUSTIFICATION IN GENERAL

The Epistle of James, in the famous passage ii. 14-26, bases justification on faith and works, and so suggests a contradiction, and even an intentional contradiction, to the Pauline teaching, and a polemic against the author of the Epistle to the Romans. In so far as this appearance rests on the bare idea of justification in itself, it is removed by a history of that idea. It is not in its origin peculiarly Pauline, but is a common possession of the Old and New Testament. The word dikaιoûv, PT, describes in the Old Testament the action of a judge who declares a man innocent, and so the word justify in the so-called forensic sense, as borrowed from legal speech, has become a current expression for acquittal; it is a declaration of innocence, especially it is the sentence of God acquitting or justifying a man in His judgment. It cannot therefore be in the least surprising to find the expression in the mouth of James, since it is in no way the peculiar possession of Paul. The Jewish theology of the synagogue makes frequent use of it,1 and it was well known to the primitive Church, all the more as that Church, convinced of the near approach of the Messianic day of judgment, was led to discuss with greater eagerness the alternatives of the Kaтadiкáceo@ai or Sikaιovolaι on that day (Matt. xii. 37). But in the usage of the Old Testament two possible senses appear. He who is

1 Weber, in his Altsynagogalen Theologie, proves that.

2 It is, notwithstanding, a favourite objection to our whole conception of the Epistle of James, that it is improbable, and cannot be proved that the primitive Christianity before Paul spoke of justification by faith, or by faith and works. This is an argumentum e silentio of the most sorry kind. What do we know at all of the doctrinal and religious speech of pre-Pauline Christendom? The Epistle of James either is a pre-Pauline writing, and then this one development of pre-Pauline Church history attests that that notion was current among Christians before Paul, or it is not a pre-Pauline document, and then there exists no document at all which can bear witness to the pre-Pauline usage of Christendom.